Yep, it's amazing that, as bad as others characterize the health care systems of Canada or the UK, they deliver better care (by any measurable result) for ~1/2 the cost.

Personally, I'm typically in favor of systems that deliver better results for less money, but that's just me.

OK, here it is, when are you moving?

N.H.S. Overwhelmed in Britain, Leaving Patients to Wait.

Cuts to the National Health Service budget in Britain have left hospitals stretched over the winter for years, but this time a flu outbreak, colder weather and high levels of respiratory illnesses have put the N.H.S. under the highest strain in decades.

The situation has become so dire that the head of the health service is warning that the system is overwhelmed.

“The N.H.S. waiting list will grow to five million people by 2021,” Mr. Stevens said in an impassioned speech to health care leaders in November. “That is one million more people, equivalent to one in 10 of us, the highest number ever.”

What’s more, he said, “after seven years of understandable but unprecedented constraint on the current budget, the N.H.S. can no longer do everything that is being asked of it.”

Other patients said they had been turned away and referred to a pharmacy or general practitioner because their cases were not deemed urgent enough.

Personally, I'm typically in favor of systems that deliver better results for less money, but that's just me.

Remember, you get what you pay for in every case:

Low taxes or free, high-quality medical services: Pick one.

Can a relatively low-tax country run a high-quality, taxpayer-funded health service that's free to all?

Britain's National Health Service suggests the answer is NO.

The NHS is good at some things but bad, bordering on disastrous, at others. Its great virtue is truly universal coverage, no questions asked -- and by international standards, the system is also cheap to run. As a result, though, it's perpetually short of money, and the service is erratic. Today the NHS is yet again dealing with a financial crisis and a surge of complaints about standards.

The NHS's problems -- too many patients and not enough staff -- aren't seasonal. Britain's population is growing and getting older, and as medicine advances, treatments become more sophisticated and expensive.

The public's devotion to the principle underlying the NHS is undiminished: The British see health care as a right. Increasingly, though, they are also demanding higher standards of care, and those come at a price. Taxpayers must either dig deeper to maintain the current service -- deeper still to improve it -- or else accept that the NHS will continue to disappoint.

You can't call something "privatized" when the government is forcing you to buy it. That's the antithesis of a free market.

Some people still don't get how it works: bums show up at emergencies without insurance. They do get healthcare. Who pays? Answer: YOU. Whatever the system you pay for it. Before Obama care, you paid for it. After Obamacare you will pay for it.

The system in which you pay the LESS for other people, is in fact when these other people are "forced" to buy insurance.

NHS is only one of 58 countries with public health care. It was poorly designed and has been chronically underfunded since day 1. Odd how a bunch of first rate systems that blow the US health care away for half the price never get mentioned.

The original post is just moronic. One office isn't taking new patients. There are plenty of specialists as well as GP's all over the US that arn't taking new patients either. Last time I checked the most popular GP in my town has a 3 year waiting list for new patients.

Canada is listed at the 16th best health system in the world. The US is 37th. That doesn't include prices.

The free market can definitely improve non-emergency health care in the US. What we have now is hidden random prices which are not even the same for every patient of the same provider. "For you? Let's see, I think I'll charge you more than I charge others because you're trying to escape the insurance cartel...

I'll ask again, how will this happen under the insurance company billing system? You keep spewing out these lame platitudes that mean nothing. How about some nuts and bolts details of how posting prices, which anyone can find out anyway if they wanted, will create a free market and lower prices? People go to the doctors that are on their insurance.

Still waiting for this information from the last 10 times I've asked. It's true because I believe it should be true doesn't count.

There are at least two ways to look at Capitalism in relation to health care.

One way is the classic concept, where winners win and losers lose. Ideal for many aspects of society. If you can't afford a car, you don't get a car. Take public transit. If a business is inefficient, it should fail to make room for a better competitor. For health care, if you can afford great health care, you can have every need met. If you are in the middle, basic needs will be met, but worse conditions will mean death. Losers have the privilege of dying outside a hospital.

The second is a national Capitalistic competitiveness model. In order for a nation to be competitive, it needs a healthy and mobile workforce. Universal coverage is more oriented towards preventative medicine, which is very effective. Keeps workers at work. With universal coverage, workers can move from employer to employer without health insurance being a factor. More importantly, workers can become entrepreneurs without worrying about about health care. Universal health care is very conducive to supporting small business and the entrepreneurial spirit.

You have a single provider for water and electricity, right? Do you ever get water and electricity?You have a single road network, right? it's a miracle you can get anywhere.

Have you seen your water bill lately? If your house is on a public water system. Almost all Americans used to have private water systems, called "well" and "septic tank." Even today, the majority of American houses are still on those private water systems. Half a century or so ago, more and more cities and towns decided to have public water systems; the reason cited at that time was for lower cost, and initially the public systems did deliver economy of scale. However, today, the typical house on public water systems has a quarterly water bill of $800! Compared to private wells and septic tanks that cost no more than $30/mo. Why such drastic price increase after water provision went "single-payer"? Because:

1. It's a monopoly;

2. When the public water systems were set up, they had a small number of mostly young blue collar workers; after 3 decades, not only the current workers at the water departments have to be paid but also retired workers have to be paid; more positions have to be added in order to manage more people and more retirement benefit accounts. Bureaucracy tend to grow exponentially when there is no market force to instill discipline; degree requirement for those positions also increase (along with educational expense to get those degrees), so there is an ever widening gap between what the rate payers pay vs. what the workers receive.

3. The monopoly creates nexus of power for capture by rent seekers, such as new regulations that require tens of millions of dollars of new equipment that would have to be financed by banksters . . . essentially introducing an opportunity for banksters to rip off people for having water and staying alive.

That's why city-wide indoor plumbing water works show up in human history once every 1700 years or so, lasting 200-300 years each time, then disappear! Before city-wide water works showed up in the late 19th century in North America and Western Europe, humanity had to go back to Roman time to see city-wide single-payer water works. Before the Romans had theirs between about 1 century to 4th century, the Hrappans of Indus Valley had theirs around 1700BC. Between those brief spans, people used out houses for about 1500 years each time.

That's for a system that has clear economy of scale. For medicine, while the operating rooms and expensive equipment offer some opportunity for economy of scale, the most costly part of solving medical problems is one-on-one care, which has very little economy of scale. That is, unless the solution is machine-gunning and gassing people to death . . . a solution that the socialist experiments in the 20th century were notoriously efficient at.

In some countries, universal coverage means no private system. I'm against this. Providing universal coverage for preventative medicine and basic care makes sense based on my thoughts above. But providing universal coverage for 'luxury' health care doesn't. While I tend to be liberal on social issues, I'm solidly conservative fiscally, and providing deluxe coverage is financial suicide for a nation. Have a public system for the basics, and allow a private system for more.

The free market can definitely improve non-emergency health care in the US. What we have now is hidden random prices which are not even the same for every patient of the same provider. "For you? Let's see, I think I'll charge you more than I charge others because you're trying to escape the insurance cartel...

I'll ask again, how will this happen under the insurance company billing system? You keep spewing out these lame platitudes that mean nothing. How about some nuts and bolts details of how posting prices, which anyone can find out anyway if they wanted, will create a free market and lower prices? People go to the doctors that are on their insurance.

Still waiting for this information from the last 10 times I've asked. It's true because I believe it should be true doesn't count.

Insurances give out vouchers priced based on your condition(s). Even if you're totally healthy you get to spend a little (maybe get teeth fixed/whitened or some wellness whatever you choose). Insurances are prohibited from telling MDs who they can and cannot treat or to dictate prices. Patients pick MDs and rate them. Voila!

An insurance is a socialist systems whereby the people who are healthy pay for the rest - until they are sick.

Not at all. Insurance is a free market phenomenon, just like one would buy home insurance, life insurance and portfolio insurance.

Medical insurance mandated by government to include events that are guaranteed to happen (such as contraceptive pills) is indeed socialism, just like welfare paying out to allegedly intended recipients 13 cents for every dollar forcibly collected for that purpose; the other 87 cents of every dollar are lost in the bureaucracy. Obamacare, single-payer and the government enforced supply restriction on who can deliver medical service are all ways of sky-rocketing the medical bill.

If the government mandated "Meal Insurance," that each person has to buy into a government (single-payer) meal plan, we'd all be starving, just like everywhere it was tried: in the first year after Mayflower landing in Plymouth Colony (more than half the initial population starved to death in the first year as a result of that communist experiment), and in numerous socialist countries in the 20th century with a total starvation death toll of over 100 million!

Not at all. Insurance is a free market phenomenon, just like one would buy home insurance, life insurance and portfolio insurance.

Medical insurance mandated by government to include events that are guaranteed to happen (such as contraceptive pills) is indeed socialism, just like welfare paying out to allegedly intended recipients 13 cents for every dollar forcibly collected for that purpose; the rest is lost in the bureaucracy. Obamacare, single-payer and the government enforced supply restriction on who can deliver medical service are all ways of sky-rocketing the medical bill.

Agreed. That's what made it so heinously expensive, the inclusion of guaranteed events, it had to fail. It's like forcing the fire insurance to pay for a pre-planned little routine fire at the house every week.

But providing universal coverage for 'luxury' health care doesn't. While I tend to be liberal on social issues, I'm solidly conservative fiscally, and providing deluxe coverage is financial suicide for a nation.

Apparently you've never dealt with a single payer system called Medicare or Medicaid and the deluxe coverage that's provided.

There are at least two ways to look at Capitalism in relation to health care.

One way is the classic concept, where winners win and losers lose. Ideal for many aspects of society. If you can't afford a car, you don't get a car. Take public transit. If a business is inefficient, it should fail to make room for a better competitor. For health care, if you can afford great health care, you can have every need met. If you are in the middle, basic needs will be met, but worse conditions will mean death. Losers have the privilege of dying outside a hospital.

The second is a national Capitalistic competitiveness model. In order for a nation to be competitive, it needs a healthy and mobile workforce. Universal coverage is more oriented towards preventative medicine, which is very effective. Keeps workers at work. With universal coverage, workers can move from employer to employer without health insurance being a factor. More importantly, workers can become entrepreneur...

Heather Holland, a second-grade teacher at Ikard Elementary School with the Weatherford Independent School District died over the weekend, the Weatherford Democrat reports. Holland got sick about a week ago and took medication, but delayed picking up the prescription due to the $116 copay, according to the newspaper.

Heather Holland, a second-grade teacher at Ikard Elementary School with the Weatherford Independent School District died over the weekend, the Weatherford Democrat reports. Holland got sick about a week ago and took medication, but delayed picking up the prescription due to the $116 copay, according to the newspaper.

If she were on welfare, there would have been no co-pay.

I saw a post about this on Facebook. One of he co-workers commented on her death and said that she actually had the money to afford the "Therma Flu" or whatever the medication was called but thought it was a rip off and decided to not buy it. It's not like she was dead broke, and penniless. She made $80,000 a year.

If you let everyone have access to Drs. then people might have to wait several weeks to have elective surgery.

We cannot have that.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Ideally, different levels of services for what you pay would be the ideal solutionIn Europe, public system is pretty good with long wait lines. You pay private insurance and you get faster access to doctors, better hospital rooms, etc. Often the same doctors visit in both systems.

It's not good because it's stealing from Peter to pay Paul. We do not want the government involved in Health Care. It's frightening to think people would trust the same entity that runs USPS, or the DMV to run our health care system.

It's not like she was dead broke, and penniless. She made $80,000 a year.

I could be misreading your comment but @zzyyzzx I believe is pointing out the copay. There's a high likelihood she would have a much cheaper co-pay if more segments of the population pulled their weight when it comes to paying for health related services. It should be $20 instead of $116, if even that much. She could afford it either way of course so you are definitely correct, kind of stupid on her end not to just get the meds.

The reality is no American should be paying $116 for basic flu meds and others not paying a dime to get the same meds. That's nuts.

I could be misreading your comment but @zzyyzzx I believe is pointing out the copay. There's a high likelihood she would have a much cheaper co-pay if more segments of the population pulled their weight when it comes to paying for health related services. It should be $20 instead of $116, if even that much. She could afford it either way of course so you are definitely correct, kind of stupid on her end not to just get the meds.

The reality is no American should be paying $116 for basic flu meds and others not paying a dime to get the same meds. That's nuts.

Sure, you could argue that her co-pay was high but IMO not out of the ball park ridiculous, especially for someone in her income bracket.

But saying it "should be this price" is ignoring the reality of her insurance plan. Did she not agree to that insurance plan when she took the job? Did she not have the choice to not take that job but a job with a better insurance plan?

The reason she died wasn't because of a high co-pay, the reason she died was because she was too cheap to pay the co-pay for an insurance plan she agreed to as compensation for her job, so she decided to "tough it out".

But saying it "should be this price" is ignoring the reality of her insurance plan. Did she not agree to that insurance plan when she took the job? Did she not have the choice to not take that job but a job with a better insurance plan?

The reason she died wasn't because of a high co-pay, the reason she died was because she was too cheap to pay the co-pay for an insurance plan she agreed to as compensation for her job, so she decided to "tough it out".

Bad mistake. It cost this woman her life.

Does this mean there was a Personal Responsibility element to this story, and the government wouldn't run in to save her from her own mistakes?

No. Under a national Capitalistic competitiveness model everyone is covered. Medicare and Medicaid mostly covers people who aren't productive. In order to be competitive you need to cover productive people, so medical coverage doesn't limit their employment/entrepreneurial choices. From a competitive standpoint, the current system is a failure because it only supports non-producers. A universal coverage system has the advantage of encouraging entrepreneurial behavior and employee movement, while being socially acceptable because it also covers those who would otherwise die outside the emergency room door.

Medicare and Medicaid mostly covers people who aren't productive. In order to be competitive you need to cover productive people, so medical coverage doesn't limit their employment/entrepreneurial choices. From a competitive standpoint, the current system is a failure because it only supports non-producers.

That's actually not correct. With the passing of Obamacare, close to 3/4 of enrollees in the exchanges were put into Medicaid, not because they were non-productive, but because they were low income. This included many YOUNG minimum wage workers and many part time workers.

Plus, there are many people on Medicare who are also still working regularly and full time. Medicare isn't just for retired workers.

No. Under a national Capitalistic competitiveness model everyone is covered. Medicare and Medicaid mostly covers people who aren't productive. In order to be competitive you need to cover productive people, so medical coverage doesn't limit their employment/entrepreneurial choices. From a competitive standpoint, the current system is a failure because it only supports non-producers. A universal coverage system has the advantage of encouraging entrepreneurial behavior and employee movement, while being socially acceptable because it also covers those who would otherwise die outside the emergency room door.

The Housing Trap
You're being set up to spend your life paying off a debt you don't need to take on, for a house that costs far more than it should. The
conspirators are all around you, smiling to lure you in, carefully choosing their words and watching your reactions as they push your buttons,
anxiously waiting for the moment when you sign the papers that will trap you and guarantee their payoff. Don't be just another victim of the
housing market. Use this book to defend your freedom and defeat their schemes. You can win the game, but first you have to learn how to play
it.115 pages, $12.50